Federal government crackdown on student visas weighing heavily on Gold Coast providers, economy

Parts of the Gold Coast are reeling from huge losses due to new policy settings, with the impacts described by one operator as “worse than Covid”.

Inforum Education Australia in Southport. Picture: Supplied

The Gold Coast education sector is reeling from huge losses nearly a year after the federal government’s changes to student visas, with one provider calling it “worse than Covid”.

Tougher restrictions on international students and slower student visa processing were introduced in December last year as part of a 10-year strategy to reduce migration to pre-pandemic levels.

Earlier this year Gold Coast education providers and industry bodies said the policy changes to reduce migration would have drastic consequences to an extent not seen since Covid.

Concerns now mount over the future of domestic education as well as the city’s economy with redundancies and course cutting across the board – Southern Cross University is axing undergraduate degrees in creative arts while Griffith University announced “fewer than 50” redundancies due to “significant financial losses”.

Experience Gold Coast education executive director Jennine Tax said the city’s $2 billion education sector relied heavily on international students – with the international sector making up $1.7 billion of that amount.

“Much of that profit subsidises education for Aussie students,” Ms Tax said.

“When universities cut back, it impacts the offering available to Australian students not just international students.”

Ms Tax said industry bodies were trying to establish if this was just a “boom and bust” cycle of international education “vulnerable to changing politics”, but only time would tell.

Southport English language school Inforum Education Australia principal director and owner Simon Craft said things were far worse than anticipated – forced to axe 35 per cent of staff due to significant financial losses.

“It’s been awful – worse than Covid,” he said.

“The government increased student visa application fees to the highest in the world. It went up 125 per cent literally overnight.”

Student application fees were raised to $1600 from $710 in July.

Jennine Tax. Picture, Portia Large.

Mr Craft said many students wouldn’t risk rejection rates – with his colleges’ student intake even lower than during Covid.

“Students are going to other places,” he said.

“You’ve got the increase in the fee, coupled with the very high level of student visa refusals that the government has been has been doing this year, so students will apply for their student visa, but the $1600 they pay is non refundable, whether you get a visa or not.”

Ms Tax said the visa processing process was “somewhat subjective” meaning an applicant could appear to meet all the criteria, but may be rejected – with the risk being that international students avoid the non-refundable $1,600 visa fee and instead opt to study in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or even Ireland – bypassing Australia completely.

With the tourism and hospitality industries heavily reliant on student workforce, as well as many international graduates supporting aged care and the health sector, Ms Tax said impacts into the local economy would be more evident after the Christmas holiday period.

New state education minister John Paul Langbroek criticised the federal Labor government for not understanding the real-world effects of its actions.

“Here we are in a crisis situation being caused by the government’s regulation of visas,” he said.

Owners of Inforum Education Australia Jun and Simon Craft. Picture: Ashleigh Jansen

“The Albanese government has used the blunt stick to say it’s these students who are causing the housing crisis. Now you can Google whether overseas students are causing the housing crisis to find articles that say is not true.

“There’s an element that if you bring in 700,000 people over two years, which Australia did, and we don’t have enough supply of houses, then of course, those students are going to go somewhere.

Member for Surfers Paradise John-Paul Langbroek. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

“But the way they’ve done it is affecting training businesses and universities. It’s what the government are doing – the Labor government are affecting these local businesses and that’s what’s happening on the ground.”

Mr Langbroek said the federal government would have no choice but to “reverse” the changes due to university cut backs impacting domestic students and the aged care sector.

Originally published as Federal government crackdown on student visas weighing heavily on Gold Coast providers, economy